Ustad Allah Rakha & Zakir Hussain | Tabla

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Ustad Allah Rakha

Ravi Shankar, Alla Rakha - Tabla Solo in Jhaptal

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i had the honor of studying a bit with Zakir Hussain while attending the Ali Akbar College of Music; and, to meet his father - Ustad Allah Rakha, on a few occasions. i have always thus considered Allah Rakha to be my "grandpa," and once enjoyed the privilege of attending a string-tying ceremony at his home during his stay on the West Coast (c. 1980). listening to an Allah Rakha talba solo record back in the day was, in fact, one of my main inspirations to delve into Indian Music. ...more on AACM and Ali Akbar Khan later

Once in a great while, there emerges a musician who, through his genius, injects that certain spark necessary to elevate an instrument to another level of expression and appreciation.

For tabla, Ustad Allarakha was such an artist, having brought his instrument a stature and respect never before enjoyed. A disciple of Mian Kader Baksh, the great guru of the Punjab gharana, Ustad Allarakha was, in his lifetime, the most celebrated exponent of this style.

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Sandeep Sagar: Abbaji - Ustad Allah Rakha

Qureshi Alla Rakha Khan (Dogri: क़ुरैशी अल्ला रखा ख़ान) popularly known as Alla Rakha (29 April 1919 – 3 February 2000) was an Indian tabla player. He was a frequent accompanist of Ravi Shankar... His eldest son, Zakir Hussain is also an accomplished tabla virtuoso.

Ustad Alla Rakha Khan popularized the art of tabla, playing across the globe, elevating the status and respect of his instrument. Abbaji (as he was affectionately known by his disciples) also bridged the gap between Carnatic music and Hindustani music by playing with both renowned Carnatic musicians and other Hindustani stalwarts.

Allah Rakha with Pt Ravi Shankar at Woodstock

"Alla Rakha is the Einstein, the Picasso; he is the highest form of rhythmic development on this planet."

Leading American percussionists in Rock n' Roll, such as the Grateful Dead's Mickey Hart, admired him and studied his technique, benefiting greatly even from single meetings. Hart, a published authority on percussion in world music, said "Alla Rakha is the Einstein, the Picasso; he is the highest form of rhythmic development on this planet." Alla Rakha also collaborated with jazz drummer Buddy Rich, on their 1968 album Rich à la Rakha. Ustad Alla Rakha Khan was awarded the Padma Shri in 1977 and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1982.

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Alla Rakha - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Zakir Hussain

Ustad Zakir Hussain -- Vintage Teental Solo

Hussain was a child prodigy, and was touring by the age of twelve. He went to the United States in 1970, beginning his international career which includes more than 150 concert dates a year. In 1973, he appeared on George Harrison's Living in the Material World album. A prolific composer, he has received widespread recognition.

Hussain is a founding member of Bill Laswell's 'World Music Supergroup' Tabla Beat Science. Hussain participates in the Silk Road collaborative musical project. He teaches Tabla to advanced students in both San Francisco and Mumbai. Zakir participates in the Global Drum Project with percussionists from around the world.

In 1992, Hussain founded Moment! Records, which features original collaborations in the field of contemporary world music, as well as live concert performances by great masters of the classical music of India. The label presents his own world percussion ensemble, The Rhythm Experience, both North and South Indian classical recordings, Best of Shakti and the Masters of Percussion series. Moment Records’ 2006 release Golden Strings of the Sarode, with Aashish Khan and Zakir Hussain, was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Traditional World Music Album category for that year.

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more > Zakir Hussain (musician) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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father & son duets

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i once enjoyed the privilege of attending an intimate evening with these two performing together and it was truly amazing.

Ustad Allah Rakha & Zakir Hussain Tabla Solo Teental

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see also

what next: L Subramaniam | Shakti | Carnatic Classical (Zakir Hussein with Shakti)

Indian Music (Hindustani Classical) playlist on robertcherwink's YouTube Channel

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Ram Narayan - Sarangi | Hindustani Classical

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Mishra Pilu (raagmala)

Ram Narayan - Mishra Pilu (raagmala)
Pandit Ram Narayan - Sarangi - circa 1983
Tabla - Suresh Talwalkar

one of the most haunting musical instruments that i've ever heard, played by a master. i had the honor of attending one of Pandit Nayaran's recitals around the time this was recorded.

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Sarangi

The Sārangī (Hindi: सारंगी, Punjabi: ਸਰੰਗੀ, sarangī) is a bowed, short-necked string instrument of India which is originated from Rajasthani folk instruments. It plays an important role in India's Hindustani classical music tradition. Of all Indian instruments, it is said to most resemble the sound of the human voice – able to imitate vocal ornaments such as gamakas (shakes) and meend (sliding movements). It is also said to be the hardest Indian instrument to master.

"a hundred voices"

There are different versions for the meaning and origins of sarangi but the most logical and widely accepted ones are that the word sarangi is derived from two Hindi words: sau (meaning hundred) and rang (meaning colour) hence meaning the instrument of 100 colours while the other one is that the word sarangi is combination of two sanskrit words: saar (summary) and ang (form, herein different styles of playing instrumental music for eg. gayaki ang) hence meaning the instrument that can summarize every style of music or playing. Both the versions though point towards the same quality of sarangi, that it can play any type of repertoire of music and still sound beautiful.

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Sarangi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Pandit Ram Narayan

Ram Narayan (Hindi: राम नारायण; IAST: Rām Nārāyaṇ, IPA: [ˈraːm naːˈraːjn]; born 25 December 1927), often referred to by the title Pandit, is an Indian musician who popularized the bowed instrument sarangi as a solo concert instrument in Hindustani classical music and became the first internationally successful sarangi player.

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Living Legend...
He was fortunate to have learnt music from vocalists with a spiritual bent of mind. His first Guru, Udaylalji, was a disciple of Allah Banda Jhakurdin (of the Dagar family of Udaipur). He used to sing daily at the Ram temple in Udaipur. An often forgotten fact is that our classical (Raag) music had always been seeped in spirituality and was always deeply rooted in the ritual of the temples. All the major schools of classical music have a spiritual foundation. The compositions would mainly consist of praise for or description of the Almighty or Hindu philosophy.

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ramnarayansarangi.com

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Narayan was born in Udaipur and learned to play the sarangi at an early age. He studied under sarangi players and singers and, as a teenager, worked as a music teacher and traveling musician. All India Radio, Lahore, hired Narayan as an accompanist for vocalists in 1944. He moved to Delhi following the partition of India in 1947, but wishing to go beyond accompaniment and frustrated with his supporting role, Narayan moved to Mumbai in 1949 to work in Indian cinema.

After an unsuccessful attempt in 1954, Narayan became a concert solo artist in 1956, and later gave up accompaniment. He recorded solo albums and began to tour America and Europe in the 1960s. Narayan taught Indian and foreign students and performed, frequently outside of India, into the 2000s. He was awarded India's second highest civilian honor, the Padma Vibhushan, in 2005.

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Ram Narayan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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see also

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ramnarayansarangi.com

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Indian Music (Hindustani Classical) playlist on robertcherwink's YouTube Channel

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L Subramaniam | Shakti | Carnatic Classical

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Dr. Lakshminarayana Subramaniam

Dr L Subramaniam: Hamsadhvani

Violin maestro Dr L Subramaniam in a special moment of loving grace during his short exposition of the ragam Hamsadhvani at TFA's Founder's Day celebrations on7th April 2008.

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Dr. Lakshminarayana Subramaniam (born on 23 July 1947) is an acclaimed Indian violinist, composer and conductor, trained in the classical Carnatic music tradition and Western classical music, and renowned for his virtuoso playing techniques and compositions in orchestral fusion.

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L. Subramaniam - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Shakti

i met Subramaniam many years ago while studying Hindustani classical music with Ali Akbar Khan and Zakir Hussein - he was playing with Zakir in the fusion group Shakti at the time

Shakti was a group which played a novel acoustic fusion music which combined Indian music with elements of jazz; it was perhaps the earliest practitioner of the musical genre world fusion.

Its leading member was the English guitar player John McLaughlin, but it also featured the Indian violin player L. Shankar. It also included Zakir Hussain (on tabla), and Ramnad Raghavan (on the Mridangam) and T. H. "Vikku" Vinayakram (on Ghatam).

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Shakti (band) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Vikku and Zakir - Shakti: Zakir Hussain on tabla and T. H. "Vikku" Vinayakram on Ghatam of the East West Fusion group Shakti. With John McLaughlin and L. Shankar

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Shakti interview: Small interview with Ustad Zakhir Hussain & Brit John McLaughlin, co-founders of the Indo-Jazz group Shakti.

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Shakti "Joy" (1/2): From the album "Shakti with John McLaughlin (USA, 1975).

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Carnatic Classical

Carnatic music is a system of music commonly associated with the southern part of the Indian subcontinent, with its area roughly confined to four modern states of India: Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu. It is one of two main sub-genres of Indian classical music that evolved from ancient Hindu traditions; the other sub-genre being Hindustani music, which emerged as a distinct form because of Persian and Islamic influences in North India...

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Carnatic music - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Carnatic Classical: L Subramaniam - Violin
On the right side : his son Ambi

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L.Subramaniam-Vatapi-Hamsadhvani

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see also

Indian Music (Hindustani Classical) playlist on robertcherwink's YouTube Channel

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INDIAN MUSIC: Vichitra Veena | Dr. Lalmani Mishra

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Vichitra Veena by Dr. Lalmani Mishra of Mishrabani Gharana playing Raga Tilang

the instrument that i am thinking about building is a combination of a hurdy gurdy and no-frets vina as in the video above. the basic idea is to slice a barrel along one side (which becomes then the top of the instrument), intstall a soundboard on top, and have a large cranked wheel to drive a couple of playing strings and some drones (no hurdy-gurdy keybox) ...maybe i will post a photo of my sketch of a "barrel gurdy," or the new idea of using a conga drum rather than a barrel.

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Dr. Lalmani Mishra

my "vocal teacher's" teacher *

Lalmani Misra (August 11, 1924 - July 17, 1979), M.A., Ph.D., D. Mus. (Veena), M.Mus. (Vocal), B.Mus. (Sitar, Tabla), (Sahitya Ratna) Dean & Head, Faculty of Music and Fine Arts, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, was an eminent Indian classical musician known as much for his art as for his scholarship.

Lalmani learnt Dhruvapada (Dhrupad) Dhamar in the tradition of Pt. Shankar Bhatt and Munshi Bhrigunath Lal. He learnt Khayal singing with Ustad Mehndi Hussain Khan, a disciple of Ustad Vazir Khan of Rampur Seni Gharana. He received training in Dhruvpad, Bhajan and Tabla from Swami Pramodanand; in sitar from Shri Shukdev Roy. Under the tutelage of Ustad Amir Ali Khan he perfected several other musical instruments.

Lalmani was appointed on the post of assistant music director in Shehanshahi Recording Company, Calcutta at the age of twelve. He worked in several films for the next two years...

Performing in Berlin, with a troupe, April 1932

...Carrying out research in the music of Vedic age, he unraveled the mystery of Samic scale. To re-establish the lost notes of that period he created a Raga Sameshwari. Dr. Misra also first made it possible in history of mankind, the twenty two Shruti-s (not to be confused with śruti, the genre of Vedic literature) to be distinctly heard on a single Veena. The invention and key to its function has been explained in “Shruti Veena” published on 11-02-1964 by Vikram Singh, Narendra Printing Works, Varanasi.

He had created several other Raga-s like Shyam Bihag, Jog Todi, Madhukali, Madhu-Bhairav, Baleshwari etc., all in strict adherence with rigid classical norms for creation of new Raga-s. Unesco released a compact disc of his Vichitra Veena entitled The Music of Pandit Lalmani Misra in 1996.

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much more interesting history on this teacher > Lalmani Misra - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

* i studied with Dr. Laxmi Tewari, a student of Dr. Misra's, at SSU for a couple of years around 1978 to 1981. Tewari-ji still teaches at SSU, and is an ethnomusicologist as was Misra. (the link for Tewari goes to an article from 1996 by Jan Haag). more on Dr. Tewari later :)

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see also

Indian Music (Hindustani Classical) playlist on robertcherwink's YouTube Channel

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